The Magazine of Space Conquest
. It was published in Amherst, Wisconsin (U.S.A.).
Editor: Ray Palmer

Earth’s "Center
of Gravity - Up or down?"

Why was it that at the turn of the century, the
Geodetic Survey Departments of both the French and United States governments
made certain tests, which upset the Copernican theory, than decided that
they should be kept secret? What, actually, were these tests, and should
they be repeated today, under the most severe test conditions?

If you’ve ever watched
a bricklayer at work, you’ve seen him use a plumb bob to determine the
perpendicular so that his wall will be erect and straight. A plumb bob
is simply a weight suspended on the end of cord. It acts on the principle
of the attraction of gravity, or mass, and the weight always points toward
the center of gravity, which in the case of spherical Earth is its exact
center. A line formed by the cord of a plumb bob is at precisely a right
angle from the horizontal.

It is a division of a
plane surface into two 90° angles.

2 plumb lines, which in a deep
shaft below are 33 cm (13 in. ) farther apart than at the surface

By simply laying his bricks
parallel to the line of the plumb bob, the bricklayer builds a wall that
is precisely erect.

If he did not us a plumb
bob, there would be many more leaning towers of Pisa in the world.However, the plumb bob
is not used only to erect buildings, but it is used to measured the distance
of the sun or any planet. This is done by measuring a precise horizontal
distance on the Earth (which is naturally a curve, because the Earth is
round), and since we know the circumference of the Earth, the distance
around it, thus we can calculate an exact base for our proposed triangle
to be used in measuring the distance of the sun. Then, by us of a sextant,
we can "shoot the sun" from both ends of this base line, and get a pair
of angles which are slightly less than 90° angles because they are
obviously not parallel to the perpendicular as determined by the plumb
bob. We know that, given one side of a triangle, and two of its angles,
we can calculate the length of the other two sides. Thus, we can tell how
far the sun is from the Earth.

It isn’t quite this simple,
because we don’t know the precise size of the Earth, and thus, the difference
in parallelism of the two perpendiculars we have achieved at both ends
of our base line. It should be obvious to the reader that since the plumb
bobs point at the center of the earth lines projected into space would
continually move further apart.Thus we have a great
interest in exactly how far it is to the center of the Earth, in order
to be absolutely sure of our two important angles in figuring interplanetary
distances.

Sometime prior to 1901,
the French Government, wishing to determine more accurately the actual
size of the Earth, so that they could revise and refine their calculations
regarding the distance to the sun, hit on a way to measure the difference
in distance apart at the top of two lines perpendicular to the surface
of the Earth and the bottom of those same two lines. They wanted a pair
of lines long enough to give them an appreciable measurement . Obviously
they could not erect two parallel poles a mile high, but they did feel
they could suspend two plumb bobs a mile deep into a mine shaft, and thus
be able to measure the distance apart at the top and the distance apart
at the bottom, which would be slightly less. They wanted to know exactly
how much less.

The result of these tests
was very strange. So strange that the French Geodetic scientists contacted
the scientists of the American Geodetic Survey and conveyed their results
to them, with the request that similar tests be conducted in this country.
Officially, nothing was done for some years. But in 1901, one of the Geodetic
surveyors happened to be working in the vicinity of the Tamarack mines
near Calumet, Michigan. He contacted the chief engineer at Tamarack, and
informed him of the information transmitted by the French government.

Two mine shafts were selected,
and plumb lines exactly 4,250 feet long were suspended in each mine. At
the end of these lines a sixty pound bob was hung. In order to prevent
movement through a horizontal direction, each bob was suspended in a tank
of oil placed at the bottom of the mine shafts.In this way, it was reasoned,
magnetic forces could not effect them. The lines used to suspend the bobs
were No. 24 piano wires. For twenty-four hours the lines were allowed to
hang, so that there would be no possibility of movement from putting them
in place still remaining in the lines.The measurements were
begun.

It was then that it was
discovered that the French Geodetic engineers had not made a mistake.Careful re-checking proved
that the lines, contrary to expectations, were farther
apart at the bottom than at the top!

There can be only one
implication to such strange result – the center of gravity is not, as previously
believed, at the center of the Earth, but in fact, it must be above the
surface of the Earth, somewhere in Space! If these two lines, formed by
the suspended plumb lines, were to be extended upward, they would meet
somewhere in the void away from the Earth, and that point, by all the rules
of gravitational attraction, should be the center of gravity of this planet!

Greatly puzzled, and not
a little disturbed, the Tamarack engineer sent for Professor McNair of
the Michigan College of Mines. With McNair there to check his results,
the experiment was repeated, the measurements gone over again, and both
men were convinced that no error had been made. Professor McNair suggested
that the plumb bobs be changed to a non-magnetic metal to overcome any
possibility of magnetic attraction or repulsion due to a magnetic ore body
nearby. But when this was done, the same figures were arrived at. If magnetic
influences had been at work, they would have varied with different metals,
but they did not.

Now, suggested McNair,
it would be a good idea to prevent air currents from traveling up and down
the mine shafts which might be affecting the plumb lines. Thus, both mine
shafts were sealed at the top. Once more the figures remained the same.

After trying many methods
to vary the figures and failing, Professor McNair gave up in complete bewilderment.

These series of test had
not gone on in complete secrecy, and it was inevitable that news of them
leaked out.

Page 2

It leaked to a reporter
of the Milwaukee (Wisconsin), Sentinel, who published the story. It stated
the crux of the situation as follows: "The wires were supposed to hang
parallel to each other (the reporter mad an error here, because this is
not a fact – they should have hung closer together at the bottom), but
were farther apart below the surface than they were at the surface and
no one has suggested anything that seems to cover the question."

Professor McNair, when
questioned stated for publication that he had proved that magnetic attraction
from the Earth or the sides of the shaft did not cause the strange divergence.
Then he went back to the Michigan College of Mines and wiped the whole
thing from his mind.

Apparently this is true,
for he made no effort to contact his colleagues or scientists to call attention
to the fact that what they were teaching about gravitation and plumb lines
did not actually hold true when put to a conclusive field test. However,
we can forgive Professor McNair for his reluctance to pursue the matter
further, because its implications are tremendous indeed. They are totally
shattering to our concept of the universe, and in fact, if they can be
made to hold true, make a shambles of all our physical sciences. Obviously
Professor McNair was unwilling to so upset his daily routine. Nor were
the United States and French governments – for as the French put it, "the
value of the franc will remain unchanged, and bridges and buildings, can
still be built, so why make an issue of it?"

However, Professor Hallock
of Columbia University was of a different mind. He heard of the experiment
through a professor at the Michigan College. He held that this actually
was attraction upon the plumb lines and in a very astute article, told
how easily the matter could be settled by using phosphor bronze wires instead
of piano wires, and lead bobs for iron bobs.

The tamarack engineer,
delighted at an opportunity to clear his mind of its confusion, followed
instructions to the letter and came up with precisely the same measurements
as before. When Professor Hallock was informed of this result, he retired
into a dignified and stony silence. No so the Tamarack engineer. He had
decided that something was causing this phenomena, and he was going to
find out what it was.Plumb bobs suspended
in a single mine shaft gave too delicate a difference in measurement, and
after all, were not accurate enough to give any reliable figures on the
amount of deviation (for instance, per mile) and whether or not the deviation
had any relation to the size of the earth. After all, it had originally
been the purpose of the French Geodetic Survey to refine the actual size
of the Earth as then known to a more accurate figure. They had something
in mind concerning artillery, as well as astronomy.

A second series of experiments
were conducted at Calumet. This time two elevator shafts into the mine
were used instead of one, those numbered two and five.

These two were 4,250 feet
apart, and were also 4,250 feet deep. They were connected at the bottom
by a perfectly straight transverse tunnel.

Now, plumb bobs were hung
in each shaft, and measurements were made. This time it was found that
the plumb lines were 8.22 inches (21 cm) farther apart at the bottom than
at the top.

It did not take the Tamarack
engineer long to discover the divergence that would be necessary to complete
a 360° spherical circumference. There was only one difficulty – as
expressed be the plumb lines, it would be the circumference of the inside
of a sphere, and not the outside; Further, the center of gravity, as expressed
by the angles formed by the plumb lines, would be approximately 4,000 miles
out in space!

Obviously this could not
be true, because if the Chinese were to make calculations based on a similar
pair of mine shafts in their country, on the opposite side of the globe,
the center of gravity would be found to be 4000 miles in the other direction.
The center of gravity, according to the plumb lines, was a sphere’s surface,
some 16 000 miles in diameter. Any place, 4 000 miles up, was the center
of gravity.

Can we blame the Tamarack
engineer for going down in his mine and maintaining a grim silence from
that moment on?

The United States Geodetic
Survey crew for two years conducted further experiments, among them measuring
the surface of a long lake in Florida on the theory that water conforms
to the true curvature of the Earth’s surface regardless of how the land
may be, thus giving a true level – only to find that the water curved uphill
in each direction rather than downhill. Can we blame them for deciding
that to give these startling figures to the world would have no bearing
on the practical problems of life, and was therefore best forgotten, since
an explanation was beyond them?

However, others were making
similar experiments, among them a mystic named Koresh, who claimed he was
the Christ, come for the second time. In spite of his mysticism, his scientific
measurements and experiments were not in the least mystic. He used the
plumb bob to great advantage, for proof that the Earth’s curvature was
the reverse of that usually accepted as true, and thus claimed hat we lived
on the inside of the globe, rather than the outside. He accounted for the
sun, the planets, the stars, the moon, gravity, etc. in a very elaborate
set of theories, but in spite of this, his discoveries also went by the
board, and are scarcely remembered today, and never mentioned in scientific
circles.

Yet, the facts remain.
Plumb lines are farther apart at the bottom than at the top. What does
it mean? What is wrong with our concept of gravity, mass, electro-magnetism,
the Earth’s size and shape, our position in relation to other bodies in
space, the very nature of physical reality?

From this point on, this
article, we will deviate from facts, and merely theorize. We ask no one
to take what we say seriously, as being presented as an explanation. The
statements we will make we make only for the purpose of argument, and possibly
to point a way toward further experiment in an effort to solve the mystery.

First, the Earth is a
sphere (with certain very minor irregularities). We live on the outside
of it. The Moon circles the earth, and the Earth circles the Sun. Some
force holds them all in orbit and in their relationships to each other.
It is said that gravitation is that force. I is said the Moon’s orbit is
maintained because the attraction of mass of both bodies is exactly counterbalanced
by centrifugal force. The Earth system is maintained in its orbit about
the sun by the same delicate balance. Could it be that there is no such
thing as "attraction of mass?" Would not such a quality in mass have resulted,
eons ago, in the whole Universe being gathered together in one crushing
single body?Page 3Some scientists say this
is what did happen, and that there was a resultant terrific explosion,
and that the Universe is now expanding (as proved, they say by the "red
shift" which shows the distant galaxies to be receding in every direction
at a constantly increasing speed, the more distant at something like 90
000 miles per second). Does not this increasing speed disprove their own
theory, because shouldn’t the speed of retreat from the central point (strangely
enough our own solar system!) decrease as greater distances were reached?

If there is no such thing
as attraction of mass, then we are not bothered with any center of it.
Could it be that the presence of mass (regardless of properties) merely
causes a distortion in its immediate area such as the curvature of light
noted (as predicted by Albert Einstein ) around the sun during a solar
eclipse? Thus, wouldn’t a plumb line be deviated in proximity with mass
simply by reason of the intensification of that mysterious agent of creation,
an electromagnetic field? The best theory of creation to date is the theory
of an electromagnetic field being placed in rotation, and thus the driving
to its center, in a literal condensation process, of matter, to form a
central body and planets.

Anyone who has watched
a whirlpool, or a whirlwind, has noted the polar "holes" in both ends.
If the Earth was so formed, would it not be mandatory that it have a hole
at both poles, and possibly even be hollow? Do all planets have such holes?
Do we see evidence of them in the polar caps (clouds hiding the opening,
just as clouds perpetually shroud our own poles) of Mars, and the mysterious
"hole clear through" Mercury, the mysterious "red spot" of Jupiter, the
rings of Saturn, etc.?

If gravity (as Einstein
finally said when he formed his last theory, the electromagnetic field
theory) is really not a thing at all, but merely manifestations (along
with magnetism) of something else (the electromagnetic field in motion),
then can we not account easily for the experiment of the plumb bobs and
its strange result?

Is there actually no gravity
out in space (outside the whirling electromagnetic field) and also, no
inertial mass, so that the recent proposal to "sail through space" on aluminum
sails which catch the infinitesimal energy of the photon (light particle),
and thus require no engines at all, is reasonable and practical?

Is it not true that the
plumb lines are not straight at all, but follow a curve dictated by the
lines of force of a whirling electromagnetic field? Is it true, that the
sun is seen not via light coming to us in a straight line, but actually
a gigantic curve dictated by the master vortex of the Solar System’s whirling
electromagnetic field? Thus it would be considerably nearer than the 93
000 000 miles we believe its distance to be?

If there is no such thing
as a "straight line" in this sense of the words, then are not all our measurements
of astronomical distances based on initial error inherent in the incompatibility
of angles and lines in a perpetually whirling "curved" electromagnetic
field?

Are gravity, magnetism
and inertia only illusions induced as properties of electromagnetic fields?
Is that why the plumb lines do not behave as they should; why gyrocompasses
do not work within 150 miles of the "pole;"why it is proposed to
"sail" the seas of space merely by the propulsive force of the "wind" of
light photons; why we are developing an "ion-thrust" engine for space travel
in spite of the fact that its thrust is comparable to that of a pocket
flashlight?

The sun, they say, has
a very weak electromagnetic field. The Moon none at all. Does this mean
no gravity on the moon? No inertia? No magnetism?

A thousand questions arise
from the stimulus of these two vexing plumb lines whose effects have been
so disturbing on the minds of those whose lips remain sealed – because
"it will not effect the value of the franc."Anyone with any basis
in physics at all will find them thronging through his mind. We present
these few only to provide that "initial thrust" to your thinking, and to
challenge the owners of francs whose value is dubious in any event.

Lastly, might we suggest
to the scientists at Vandenburg Air Force Base, where the polar satellites
are launched, that here, in the doubt cast on the scientific concept of
gravity, mass, and inertia, exists perhaps an explanation for six straight
failures to even locate a perfectly launched missile after it passes into
mysterious polar reaches. That failure is due to the inertial guidance
system that depends for its function on remaining in an electromagnetic
field. At the poles, might it be that there are "holes" in this field,
and that your rockets are being lost in these holes, propelled by too much
rocket thrust acting on little or no mass at all (inertia-wise)?

The whole thing is something
to think about, and certainly not to be hidden beneath a pile of francs.

Would it be too much for
us to ask that a body of recognized savants be assigned the task of conducting
these experiments again, in the light of present – day knowledge and experience
and implements, to correct our impressions concerning gravity, the true
nature of electromagnetism, and such relatively simple things as whether
or not a body of water’s level curves up or down?

After all, it is our money
that is being spent shooting at a target that may not even be where we
think it is! A record of 100% misses for Vandenburg is subject to questioning
and reevaluation!